Taking photographs inside the museum was not permitted, nor were reproductions available. This was sacred ground. Open to all, regardless of religion. The Black Robes had long sought to restrict the site to devout Muslims, but by presidential decree, the federal government maintained sole responsibility for the museum, with army personnel in charge of operations, and army imams responsible for prayers.
After the civil war, both sides had claimed Washington, D.C., fighting over the dead streets, hoping to recapture the glory of the former capital. The D.C. Qur’an had been the great prize for the Islamic Republic, while the Bible Belt carted off the statue of Thomas Jefferson from its memorial, installing the scorched marble in their new capital of Atlanta. Rakkim had actually seen the statue, waiting in line for hours to file past, silent, staring at the president’s solemn face through lead glass. New York City had remained largely untouched, its crumpled skyscrapers mute, the dingy Hudson lapping through Manhattan, the waters rising as the ice caps slowly melted.
Rakkim had been to New York only once, part of a recon team of Fedayeen dropped in to search for financial records rumored to be under the Stock Exchange. Three days in full containment gear and he never saw a bird. Or a rat. Or any other living thing. Except cockroaches. The roaches carpeted the basements, shimmering in the flashlight beams, wings aflutter, and he didn’t want to think about what they fed on. Three days…if there was anything under the Stock Exchange it remained safe and secure from the living. He was never so happy to leave a place.
Rakkim strolled toward the wall maps showing the great battles of the war. Chicago, reduced to cinders. Detroit’s auto works gutted by terrorist bombs. Sante Fe. Denver. The St. Louis arch collapsed. Newark, the deepest penetration into the Islamic states by the Christian armies. Newark fought block by block, a city given up to the flames. Newark, where Islamic reinforcements, most still in high school, had finally stopped the Christian advance. Bloody Newark. The photos of the dead went on for fifty yards. Rakkim had visited the museum hundreds of times, and the photos of the war’s leftovers always affected him the most. A single shoe, a black lace-up dress shoe, still so shiny you could see the photographer reflected. A crushed bicycle. An upended mailbox, letters spilling out onto the mud: phone bills and love letters and birthday cards.
The official death toll of the second civil war was 9 million, but Redbeard said the true figure was three or four times higher, much of that from outbreaks of plague and typhus and other dark diseases that had sprung up in the aftermath. The worst were the man-made toxins, lab-grown fever brews that twisted the infected into screaming knots or left them vomiting gouts of blood. Even now, whole cities were still quarantined-Phoenix and Dallas and Pittsburgh, hot zones where no one dared enter.
Rakkim watched a robed pilgrim moving slowly along the far wall, head tilted in prayer. His face was hidden within the folds of a hood, but something about his gait was familiar. Faces could be disguised, height and weight altered, but something as elemental as walking was almost impossible to shift. The pilgrim was Stevens, the pockmarked dandy Redbeard had sent to arrest him that night at the Blue Moon. Rakkim started toward the staircase. He wondered if the agent’s face was still swollen, if he liked the look of his broken nose, flaunting it as an injury in the line of duty.
Redbeard rolled his electric wheelchair through the crowd of schoolchildren visiting the War Museum, their voices hushed, glancing around as though they were in an unfamiliar mosque. He wore opaque glasses, his beard powdered white and extended, hanging over his belly. He rolled silently across the granite floor, his left arm twitching, useless. A single medal was pinned to his voluminous jellaba, a combat infantrymen’s badge. An honest medal, devoid of fame or favor, marking him as a wounded veteran of the war of independence. A businessman approached, bowed, and placed a $20 bill into Redbeard’s lap, joining the other bills that he had been given. Redbeard murmured a blessing, head lolling, and the businessman backed away, thanking him for his service.
Still no sign of Rakkim.
Redbeard liked the museum, particularly at dawn. The House of Martyrs was never closed and never empty. The people honored the dead, those who had paid the greatest price for their faith. He still remembered the old days, before the transition. Graveyards for the nation’s war dead had been overgrown, the graves untended. There had not even been enough buglers to play taps; the army had been forced to use recorded music to honor the martyrs. Military parades had played to empty streets, or worse, the color guard had faced catcalls from those whose freedom to jeer had been paid for with others’ blood. A terrible time for heroes. A world without glory, a people with their eyes on the mud instead of the heavens. No wonder the wisdom of the Prophet, may his name be blessed, had swept across the land like a wildfire, cleansing all before it. After all that had happened since the transition, after all he knew about the Old One, there was never a moment that Redbeard regretted the passing of the former regime.
Another man in a wheelchair glided past, nodding at Redbeard. A young man, wearing an army uniform, his legs removed above the knee.
Along the far wall, a woman in a bright blue chador led a young girl by the hand, led her along by the fingers as though they were on an excursion in the woods to pick wildflowers. The girl was young, five or six perhaps, but it was the woman who drew Redbeard’s attention. She looked like Katherine. Sarah’s mother. His brother’s wife.
Redbeard trailed along after them, heedless of who was in his way. People stepped aside, apologizing, as though they were in the wrong, but he kept his eyes on the woman. It was impossible of course, Katherine wouldn’t dare be here. He wasn’t even sure she was alive. She had fled after his brother’s murder, fled leaving Sarah in the hospital, run for her life. He had thought at the time she was afraid of the Old One. The early reports were that both he and his brother had been assassinated, reports that Redbeard himself had planted, hoping to draw out the conspirators. The ruse had worked. Even though he had been wounded, Redbeard had worked almost nonstop for weeks interrogating those arrested. He had rolled up the Old One’s network, most of them anyway, but the nation had paid a terrible price. James was a charismatic figure, loved and admired by the citizens and the politicians alike. Redbeard was merely feared. A few weeks after Katherine had fled, he realized she had been afraid of him. She had thought he had murdered his own brother. For power…and perhaps, for her. He had searched for her for two years, put all the men and resources he could spare into finding her. He had failed.
The woman in the blue chador and the child were swinging their arms gently as they walked. Redbeard had not seen Sarah smile like that until he’d brought Rakkim home. The street thief who had melted her heart. Melted Angelina’s heart too. Redbeard had been more careful with his emotions, but the boy had finally won him over too. It had taken years, but he had come to love the boy. The urchin with the eyes of a wolf. His only solace was that he had never revealed his feelings. Redbeard was experienced at such deception. He had never revealed his feelings for Katherine either.
Redbeard slowly wheeled across the great hall, getting closer to the woman and the girl. It couldn’t be Katherine. It had been over twenty years…surely she didn’t look the same. It couldn’t be her, yet he couldn’t stop himself from finding out.